Synod of Whitby

TheSynod of Whitbywas aChristianadministrative gathering held inNorthumbriain 664, wherein KingOswiuruled that his kingdom would calculateEasterand observe the monastictonsureaccording to the customs ofRomerather than the customs practised byIrishmonks atIonaand its satellite institutions. Thesynodwas summoned atHilda'sdouble monasteryof Streonshalh (Streanæshalch), later calledWhitby Abbey.

Sources

A manuscript of Bede'sHistoria Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum.

There are two principal sources for the synod. The first source, theLife of Wilfrid,is ahagiographicwork written by Stephen of Ripon, often identified asEddius Stephanus,probably soon after 710.The second source is theHistoria Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorumby theVenerable Bede,written in 731. One of Bede's sources was theLife of Wilfriditself, but he also had access to people who knew participants in the synod. For example, Bede knewAcca of Hexham,and dedicated many of his theological works to him. Acca was a companion of Wilfrid's on some of his journeys to Rome.

Both accounts basically agree, though Bede gives a much lengthier discourse on the debate. The description of the proceedings, where KingOswiupresides and rules but does not engage in the ecclesiastics' debate himself, parallels examples of other synods in other sources, such as one in theVita Sancti BonifatibyWillibald(where KingIne of Wessexperformed the same function as Oswiu).Nonetheless, it is important to observe that the authors, despite their relatively good access to sources concerning the synod, still wrote at a distance, and the accounts, especially the quotations attributed to the participants, are more likely to be summaries of how Bede and Stephen understood the issue rather than something like true quotations. Further, the motivations of the authors influenced how they presented the material. Bede placed his description of the event centrally in his narrative, and he has been recognised as overemphasising the historical significance of the synod because Easter calculation was of special interest to him, and also because he wished to stress the unity of the English Church.However, Bede's accuracy as a historian has been well regarded by Anglo-Saxon scholars, and historians have generally been comfortable following Bede's basic presentation of the synod. Stephen's text has found more criticism, andReginald Pooleidentified many of his inaccuracies, but Stephen's account of the synod did not suffer the same criticism as other passages in his work.

Background

See also:Celtic ChristianityandComputus

In seventh-century Britain there were several differences between Roman and Celtic Christianity. One of these was the method of calculating the date of Easter. The Celtic practice was that of the Gaelic monks associated with the isle ofIonaand its extensive network of daughter-houses, where the monks still observed an 84-year Easter cycle (as had earlier been the rule in Gaul and in Rome), whereas the newer tradition which was kept in Rome by this time was a 19-year cycle which had been adopted from the church of Alexandria. In the kingdom ofNorthumbria,these two traditions coexisted, and each had been encouraged by different royal houses.Edwin of Northumbriahad converted to Christianity under the influence ofmissionaries sent from RomebyPope Gregory the Greatand thus had established the 19-year Easter cycle in his realm. However, following his death and a year of political instability,Oswald of Northumbriagained the throne. He had learned Christian practice from the monks of Iona during his stay there (while a political exile in his youth), and had encouraged Ionan missionaries to further the Christianization of Northumbria, especially the famous BishopAidan.

TheSynodof Whitby was convened to settle acontroversy about the correct method of calculating the date of Easter.Early Christianshad probably originally celebrated Easter concurrent with the JewishPassover(seePassover, Christian holiday), which was held on thefourteenth dayof the first lunar month of the Jewish year, calledNisan,the day of thecrucifixionaccording toJohn19:14. However, theFirst Council of Nicaeain 325 decreed that Christians should no longer use the Jewish calendar but should universally celebrate Easter on a Sunday, the day of the resurrection, as had come to be the custom in Rome and Alexandria.Calculating the proper date (computus) was a complex process (involving alunisolar calendar), and different calculation tables developed which resulted in different dates for the celebration of Easter.

In the 660s, Ionan adherents chose to continue using the 84-year Latercus cycle invented bySulpicius Severusc. 410. Meanwhile, thePapal Curiahad commissionedVictorius of Aquitaine(AD 457) and laterDionysius Exiguus(525) to produce a new reckoning, in order to resolve the differences between the Roman method and the more scientific method of the Alexandrian Church. The three reckonings often resulted in different dates for the celebration of Easter. Neither the Victorian or Dionysian reckonings were without problems. Dionysius had simply translated the Alexandrian system into Latin without understanding it. The Victorian system, confusingly, produced double dates, relying on the pope to choose which date to use. Nevertheless, the Victorian table was accepted widely outside the area of Irish influence. Around 602, the Irish missionarySt Columbanushad already been condemned by a synod of French clerics for ignoring their authority and following his homeland's Easter calculations (the Victorian table was declared official in Gaul in 541). About AD 600 Columbanus wrote toPope Gregory I:"You should know that Victorius has not been accepted by our teachers and by the old Irish experts and by the mathematicians most skilled in the calculation of the computus, but was considered more worthy of ridicule and pity than of authority."But in Ireland also, debate raged over the best option for calculating the date of Easter.

The proper date of the celebration of the most significant Christian feast had already resulted in visible disunity in the Northumbrian court: QueenEanfledof Bernicia and her court observed Easter on a different day than did KingOswiu.While one royal faction was celebrating Easter, the other would still be fasting duringLent.Nonetheless, the disunity did not result in problems as long as the well-respected Aidan was alive. After his death, his successorFinanfound himself challenged by a monk named Ronan, an Irishman who had been trained in Rome and who wished to see the Roman Easter established. It was only in the time ofColmán,the third Ionan monk elected Bishop of Northumbria, that the conflict required royal attention and resolution.

Convocation

An important figure in the convocation of the synod wasAlchfrith,Oswiu's son and sub-king inDeira.Henry Mayr-Hartingconsidered him the "chief cause of trouble which led to the Synod".In the early 660s, he expelled Ionan monks from the monastery of Ripon and gave it toWilfrid,a Northumbrian churchman who had recently returned from Rome. Alchfrith's position in the royal house, together with his promotion of Wilfrid (who would be the spokesperson for the Roman position at the synod), has contributed to the view that he was instrumental in arranging his father's convocation of the synod.

The synod was held at a place calledStreanæshalch,at a monastery ofHilda,herself a powerful Northumbrian noble and adherent to the Ionan Easter. The identification of the location with the place later calledWhitbyis generally accepted, but not absolutely certain. Another possible candidate isStrensallnear York.

The Ionan position was advocated byColmán,Bishop of Northumbria. In support of the Roman position,Eanfledhad sent her chaplain Romanus, and the position was also taken byAgilbert,aFrankishbishop who also held office in England. Because of Agilbert's inability to express the complicated arguments inOld English,which was for him a foreign language, Wilfrid was selected as the prime advocate for the Roman party. King Oswiu presided over the synod and acted as the final judge, who would give his royal authority in support of one side or the other.

Decision

Bishop Colmán defended the Ionan calculation of Easter on the grounds that it was the practice ofColumba,founder of their monastic network and a saint of unquestionable holiness, who himself had followed the tradition ofSt. Johntheapostleandevangelist.

Wilfrid defended the Roman position on the following grounds (according to Bede's narrative):

1. It was the practice in Rome, where the apostlesSaintsPeterandPaulhad "lived, taught, suffered, and are buried".
2. It was the universal practice of the Church, even as far as Egypt.
3. The customs of the apostle John were particular to the needs of his community and his age and, since then, the Council of Nicaea had established a different practice.
4. Columba had done the best he could considering his knowledge, and thus his irregular practice is excusable, but the Ionan monks at present did not have the excuse of ignorance.
5. Whatever the case, no one has authority over Peter (and thus his successors, the bishops of Rome).

Oswiu then asked both sides if they agreed that Peter had been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven by Christ and pronounced to be "the rock" on which the Church would be built (as stated inMatthew16:18–19), to which they agreed. Oswiu then declared his judgment in favour of the holder of the keys, i.e. the Roman (and Petrine) practice.

However, Wilfrid's method of calculating the date of Easter was the one used inAlexandria,not in Rome. Bede presented the synod as a victory for the Roman party even though he had doubts whether the method was used in Rome. He produced his own version based on the Alexandrian tables, as amended byDionysius,for his own calculations in hisDe Temporibus(703) and in more detail in hisDe Temporum Ratione(716–25). The Bedan tables came to be accepted in the British Isles and theCarolingian Empirein the ninth century and in Rome in the tenth.

Outcome

The Synod of Whitby established the supposed Roman practice as the norm in Northumbria, and thus "brought theNorthumbrianchurch into the mainstream of Roman culture. "The episcopal seat of Northumbria was transferred fromLindisfarnetoYork.Wilfrid, chief advocate for the Roman position, later became Bishop of Northumbria, while Colmán and the Ionan supporters who did not change their practices withdrew to Iona. Colmán was allowed to take some relics of Aidan, who had been central in establishing Christianity of the Ionan tradition in Northumbria, with him back to Iona. To replace the departing ecclesiastics, Oswiu chose mostly Irishmen who were from the parts of Ireland that kept the Roman Easter (as most of Ireland had done for some time by the 660s).

Legacy and historical significance

The Synod of Whitby was just one of many councils held concerning the proper calculation of Easter throughout Latin Christendom in the Early Middle Ages.It addressed the issues of Easter calculation and of the propermonastic tonsure,and concerned only the part of the English Church that answered to the See of Lindisfarne:that is, it was a Northumbrian affair.Wilfrid's advocacy of the Roman Easter has been called "a triumphant push against an open door", since most of the Irish had already accepted the Roman Easter and for that reason Iona "was already in danger of being pushed to one side by its Irish rivals."

Although the focus on Whitby is on the decisions on tonsure and dating of Easter, the synod was an important step in the eventual Romanisation of the church in England; even though this Romanisation might have occurred anyway without the Synod of Whitby. Nonetheless, since the ProtestantReformation,the events of the synod have been symbolically interpreted as a "Celtic Church" opposing a "Roman Church", and the decision of Oswiu was thus interpreted as the "subjugation" of the "British Church" to Rome. There is a debate regarding the reality of a distinction between a pre-Whitby "Celtic" Church and a post-Whitby "Roman" Church. (Until fairly recently, the Scottish Divinity Faculty course on Church History ran from theActs of the Apostlesto 664 before resuming in 1560.)In the words ofPatrick Wormald:

From the days ofGeorge Buchanan,supplying the initial propaganda for the makers of the Scottish Kirk, until a startlingly recent date, there was warrant for an anti-Roman, anti-episcopal and, in the nineteenth century, anti-establishment stance in the Columban or "Celtic" Church.... The idea that therewasa "Celtic Church" in something of a post-Reformation sense is still maddeningly ineradicable from the minds of students.

In placing the synod in its proper historical context, historians of Anglo-Saxon England have also noted the position of the synod in the context of contemporary political tensions. Henry Mayr-Harting considered Alchfrith's interest in the convocation of the synod to be derived from his desire to see his father's position inBerniciachallenged and to see the replacement of Colmán with another bishop who would be more aligned with himself.

See also

• Bretwalda
• Colmán of Lindisfarne
• Eanfled of Deira
• Easter
• Religion in the United Kingdom
• Paschal Full Moon

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Bede,Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum,inVenerabilis Baedae Opera Historica.ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896)
• Stephen of Ripon,Life of Bishop Wilfrid,ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)

Secondary sources

• Abels, Richard. "The Council of Whitby: A Study in Early Anglo-Saxon Politics", inJournal of British Studies,23 (1984)
• Brown, Peter.The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity,2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003)
• Cubitt, Catherine,Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c. 650–850(London: Leicester University Press, 1995)
• Higham, N. J.The Kingdom of Northumbria AD 350–1100(Alan Sutton, 1993)
• Mayr-Harting, Henry.The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England,3rd edition (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1991)
• Stenton, F. M.Anglo-Saxon England,3rd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971)
• Stevens, Wesley M. (2014). "Easter Controversy". In Lapidge, Michael; Blair, John; Keynes, Simon; Scragg, Donald (eds.).The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England(Second ed.). Chichester, UK: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 160–161.ISBN978-0-470-65632-7.
• Wormald, Patrick,The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and its Historian,ed. Stephen Baxter (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006)

External links

• Herbert Thurston(1913)."Synod of Whitby".In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.